I'd like to have a wide range of feedback on a question of ethics in
research and researcher collegiality. Hypothetically, you
understand. Let's say, hypothetically, that there's this lab at
Rockefeller that has hoards of grad students and postdocs - and a
reputation for screwing people they collaborate with. Rumor of this
has already reached a hypothetical small lab with but one highly
industrious, bright, intelligent, handsome (and available) grad
student.
The grad student's advisor is highly honored by a request to give a
talk to this Rockefeller group and collaborate with them on various
projects. The advisor goes and presents the grad student's
preliminary data. At the next professional meeting it is revealed
that they took an interest in the same project immediately after
that and present a poster with the same results (same gene, same
methods as presented in the advisor's talk). The head of the lab
explains to the advisor that his students did it all behind his back
and there really isn't any problem anyway since they're
collaborators, etc. No mention made of joint publication. Both
labs publish separate papers.
Several months later, the grad student gets a call from a student at
the Rockefeller group asking for sequence data that was mentioned
along with preliminary, unpublished, transcriptional control assay
and gel shift data presented on his poster at the meeting. The
small lab grad recklessly stated that the sequence would be
available in a short time after the meeting. The Rockefeller grad
is somewhat insulted when the small lab grad declines to give up the
sequence data but the suggestion is made that something be worked
out with the advisor. After continued discussion the Rockefeller
grad settles for a report of transcription factor binding site
matches within the area of interest. He assures the small lab that
he only needs it to wrap up a minor point in his already completed
thesis and no further work is going to be done by anyone in the lab
concerning questions of transcriptional control in that region.
Surprise, several months later the head of the Rockefeller lab calls
to say that they've recently done some gel shifts in that region too
and they'd like the sequence data so that they can ascribe binding
to possible sites.
In short, the big lab, with a reputation for a one way flow of
information from unfortunate collaborators, waits for the small lab
to show them that something will produce possibly useful results,
and then runs off and does the same thing with the very probable
result of scooping the small lab. The question is: is this
unethical, simply unprofessional, or just business as usual in the
big fish pond and shear stupidity on the part of the small lab?
What, if anything, should the grad student do or say? How do
situations like this effect the free flow of information between
labs? Does this, for instance, explain why so little substantive
discussion of personal research takes place over netnews? All
hypothetical of course. I'd never be so stupid as to get mixed up
in something like this.